Truth Wins Out Irritated With Court Placing California Ex-Gay Law On Temporary Hold

If Judges Research, It’s Common Sense That Reparative Therapy Is Dangerous Quackery and Child Abuse, Asserts TWO

Burlington, Vt. –Truth Wins Out condemned a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for temporarily placing a hold on the landmark California law that stops quacks from abusing children under the label “reparative therapy.” The appeals court’s ruling prohibits the state from enforcing the measure, SB1172, until a different three-judge panel decides if the law violates the free speech rights of therapists and parents.

“Justice delayed is justice denied, and each day the court dawdles, more children will be psychologically abused,” said Truth Wins Out’s Executive Director Wayne Besen. “It is common sense that reparative therapy isn’t therapy at all, but a politically motivated attempt to twist scientific language in a vicious effort to stigmatize gay people as sick and in need of a cure. By definition reparative therapy is a deliberate misdiagnosis that inevitably leads to malpractice and that is why a ban for minors is necessary.”

Shannon Minter, legal director for the National Center for Lesbian Right told the Associated Press that the measure’s supporters shouldn’t read too much into Friday’s order.

“It’s disappointing because there shouldn’t even be a temporary delay of this law, but this is completely irrelevant to the final outcome,” Minter said.

Still, before the courts make any further errors in judgment, they should make a greater effort to learn what reparative therapy actually is, said TWO’s Besen.

“It is our view that if they carefully examine the actual practice, they will expedite the enactment of this important law. No rational or reasonable person supports such quackery when they view the bizarre ideas promoted and dangerous practices offered by so-called reparative therapists.”

TWO is astounded that it isn’t abundantly clear to the court that “reparative therapy” is a diabolical scheme designed to dehumanize gay and lesbian people as mentally ill, even though mainstream mental health organizations have said that homosexuality is not a mental illness for more than four decades.

It is obvious to anyone paying attention that the lobby group that represents reparative therapy, the National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) is dripping with disdain and drenched in disgust for LGBT people, says TWO.

From the beginning, NARTH was a politically motivated hate group. NARTH co-founder, the late Dr. Socarides, explained the organization’s views on LGBT people to the The Washington Post as early as August 14, 2007: “Homosexuality is a psychological and psychiatric disorder, there is no question about it. It is a purple menace that is threatening the proper design of gender distinctions in society.”

“Does this sound like legitimate science to the court?” TWO’s Besen incredulously asked.

NARTH Scientific Advisory Board member, Gerard van den Aardweg, offered this sage advice in his book, Homosexuality and Hope, A Psychologist Talks About Treatment and Change: “The person with the homosexual drive is pulled to a neurotic and conflictions existence. Stubbornly and imperviously, against all advice, despite the sorrow they inflict on their parents, young people with this problem cling to their ‘choice’ of what their ignorance mistakes for ‘happiness.’”

“Is this view expressed by van den Aardweg genuine research or old fashioned ridicule?” asks Besen. “Why is the court allowing such viciousness leveled against innocent kids to last even another hour?”

NARTH’s van den Aardweg lays out the advice NARTH therapists are urged to offer minors: “You may indeed feel that interest in your own sex, but it is still a question of immaturity. By nature, you are not that way. Your heterosexual nature has not yet awakened. What we have to discuss is a personality problem, your inferiority complex.”

“We challenge any judge to look us in the eyes and tell us that the anti-gay trash promulgated by NARTH is genuine therapy that would improve the mental health of gay minors,” said TWO’s Besen. “This is clearly agenda driven pseudo-pop-psychology created to dehumanize and delegitimize an entire group of people. It is shameful that any court would prop up such propaganda and be hoodwinked into thinking this has any semblance of real science.”

In 2006, NARTH had two major controversies highlighting the group’s bizarre views. In the first, psychiatrist Joseph Berger, MD, a member of their “Scientific Advisory Committee,” wrote a paper encouraging students to “ridicule” gender variant children:

“I suggest, indeed, letting children who wish go to school in clothes of the opposite sex–but not counseling other children to not tease them or hurt their feelings. On the contrary, don’t interfere, and let the other children ridicule the child who has lost that clear boundary between play-acting at home and the reality needs of the outside world. Maybe, in this way, the child will re-establish that necessary boundary.”

In the second controversy, Gerald Schoenwolf, PhD, also a member of NARTH’s “Scientific Advisory Committee,” wrote a polemic on the group’s website that seemed to justify slavery:

“With all due respect, there is another way, or other ways, to look at the race issue in America,” wrote Schoenwolf. “It could be pointed out, for example, that Africa at the time of slavery was still primarily a jungle, as yet uncivilized or industrialized. Life there was savage, as savage as the jungle for most people, and that it was the Africans themselves who first enslaved their own people. They sold their own people to other countries, and those brought to Europe, South America, America, and other countries, were in many ways better off than they had been in Africa. But ites:f one even begins to say these things one is quickly shouted down as though one were a complete madman.”

The media should begin pointing out that instilling sexism and misogyny in clients is a key part of reparative therapy. NARTH therapist, James E. Phelan, in his revealing book, Practical Exercises For Men In Recovery of Same-Sex Attraction (SSA) states:

“It is up to you to help educate her about your needs. Tell her, ‘I need to be the man of the house. Let me be the man of the house.’ Dominant women only demasculinize men. A man has got to be the lion of the den.”

NARTH pretends to be a secular scientific group, but its words consistently show its work is based on religion, not research.

“We, as citizens, need to articulate God’s intent for human sexuality,” Dr. Joseph Nicolosi, co-founder of NARTH, said in CNN’ 360 Degrees with Anderson Cooper, April 14, 2007. At the Feb. 10, 2007 Love Won Out conference in Phoenix, the “secular” therapist told the audience, “When we live our God-given integrity and our human dignity, there is no space for sex with a guy.”

This hidden agenda is why in 2006, the American Psychological Association issued a statement that expressed concern that “reparative therapy” was potentially damaging and might create an intolerant and discriminatory political and social climate. According to the statement:

“For over three decades the consensus of the mental health community has been that homosexuality is not an illness and therefore not in need of a cure. The APA’ concern about the position’ espoused by NARTH (The National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality) and so-called conversion therapy is that they are not supported by the science. There is simply no sufficiently scientifically sound evidence that sexual orientation can be changed. Our further concern is that the positions espoused by NARTH and Focus on the Family create an environment in which prejudice and discrimination can flourish.”

Truth Wins Out is a nonprofit organization that fights anti-LGBT extremism. TWO specializes in turning information into action by organizing, advocating and fighting for LGBT equality.

About the Author

Wayne Besen is the Founding Executive Director of Truth Wins Out and author of “Anything But Straight: Unmasking the Scandals and Lies Behind the Ex-Gay Myth” (Haworth, 2003). In 2010, Besen was awarded the “Visionary Award” at the Out Music Awards for organizing the American Prayer Hour, an event which shined a spotlight on the role American evangelicals played in the introduction of Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill.

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8 Comments

PeteDecember 22, 2012 at 11:21 pm -

Dangerous to use the term ‘common sense,’ since it’s also ‘common sense’ to some people that gay people are all evil and need to be killed or at the least suppressed. Better to use the true common litmus test of sense, fact based upon evidence: why not “It is a fact, corroborated by years of evidence and hundreds of suicides, that reparative therapy isn’t therapy at all, but a politically motivated attempt to twist scientific language in a vicious effort to stigmatize gay people as sick and in need of a cure.”

Not that I disagree with any of Wayne’s actual points, but since we are, in part, trying to change the mindsets of some people who are ambivalent to the LGBT community (ie recalibrate their sense of common sense), I think it’s important to be as precise as possible, since vagueness, fudging, and downright lies are the weapons of the anti-gay movement. If the anti-gay movement recourses to ‘common sense,’ saying that it’s common sense that marriage should be between one man and one woman (they also say it’s common sense that gay people molest children…), TWO should take the high road and point to truth, facts, and the lack of any negative impact upon the lives of the world community when LGBT people have their full rights, rather than using the same idea of a faceless, nameless consensus that has been used so long to keep LGBT people on the fringe of society.

Becky (the real one)December 23, 2012 at 6:17 pm -

After reading your post I have to say that while I don’t neccessarliy dissagree with the basis of what you say I’m not quite sure what your point is. You think that TWO shouldn’t point out b******t?

PeteDecember 24, 2012 at 10:07 am -

Not at all (I was afraid I’d get too convoluted in my own argument).

I’m saying that TWO *should* point about b*******t, but referencing ‘common sense’ as a corroboration of one’s argument is b******t itself, and it’s b******t that Christianists have used against the LGBT community for a very long time. Which is more accurate to say, “it’s common sense that the sky is blue”, or that “diffuse sky radiation causes the sky to appear blue”?

I guess what I was trying to say is that when you have the power to be as precise and detailed as possible, do that and leave vagueness like the ‘common sense’ argument to the other side. The more we can present ourselves as rational (and the other side as irrational) the harder it will be for people to deny the LGBT community their fundamental rights while appearing reasonable at the same time.

Pete, I really don’t follow your logic here. I don’t base my language on what the Christian fundies might say or arguments they have used against us. After all, their essential argument, if you boil it down to its essential nature, is that we screw children, recruit them into homosexuality, and that gay marriage is a secret plot to overthrow Western civilization. Exactly why should I care what they say?

Clearly, it is common sense that I can use the term common sense even if the Religious Right uses the term in a non commonsensical way. Thus, I will continue to use it whenever it is common sense to do so.

PeteDecember 24, 2012 at 12:26 pm -

Wayne,

I realized that from the outset I was nitpicking and I expected, and continue to expect, to be ignored in this regard. But how would being more specific in your public statement by referencing the testimonies of people who would gladly give them such as Peterson Toscano’s or other members of Beyond ExGay (or even John Paulk’s dismal failure of a rehabilitation, which you have covered so thoroughly), rather than being general (referencing ‘common sense’) hurt your argument? In my mind it could only help it. “If judges research, it’s empirical fact that ex-gay therapy is dangerous quackery and child-abuse.” Just has more zing than ‘commone sense’ to me.

It’s obvious because this legislation is being hotly debated that the fact that ex-gay therapy is harmful is (lamentably) NOT common sense – *yet*. I think your website and your vocal action have made excellent strides towards *establishing* a new, LGBT friendly, common sense, but I would think that, for a public “for immediate release” statement, you would want to pack your best punches possible; I know from the research I’ve seen on here that you’ve got better punches to throw then ‘common sense,’ that’s all. You throw plenty of them in this article even, so why bother with common sense when you’ve got something stronger than that?

It’s not about caring what the Religious Right is saying, it’s about creating the starkest possible contrast between your research-based methods, careful arguments, and general civility, and their prejudiced book-cooking, appeal to irrationality (I would put the common sense argument in here, using that in lieu of facts), and slanderous/libelous words.

DanielDecember 24, 2012 at 1:51 pm -

Pete, I think I see your point, I won’t say you’re wrong but I have some issues. First, I don’t think the Religious Right gets to decide what is “common sense.” Second, it’s really about style more than substance and it seems like a bit of a distraction from the issue at hand.

PeteDecember 24, 2012 at 2:15 pm -

Daniel,

Thank you for bringing to the fore the point I was circling around in my previous posts, trying to pinpoint what I meant. Style is gravely important, and only a hair less important than substance. Think about the comparative cultural success of the ex-gay movement in America to Westboro Baptist Church. Even though the ex-gay movement supposedly promises rehabilitation in some sense, at the heart of both ministries’ message is “god hates f@gs.” (otherwise, why would they need to go to therapy?) But the pretty little package that Exodus International et al have attempted to wrap their hateful substance in has made them easier for people, especially ones uninformed about this debate, to stomach than WBC’s open vitriol.

Style is always married to substance, as unfortunate as that may be when the substance is what you want to discuss (as you all wish I would just stick to). And does the Religious Right get to define common sense? Absolutely not. But I think their use of the term ‘common sense’ in this debate has defined that term as being devoid of substance. We’ve got substance, and most of us have got a good sense of style too, so let’s use it. :)

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Truth Wins Out is a non-profit organization that fights the "ex-gay" myth and antigay religious extremism.

TWO monitors anti-LGBT organizations, documents their lies and exposes wrongdoing. TWO specializes in turning information into action by organizing, advocating and fighting for truth, integrity, and equality for sexual minorities.